The republic of uzbekistan uzbek state world languages university english faculty III

Different types of activities in TBLL

In the following diagram the interaction between learner and teacher is described. According to this diagram the task is also connected with teacher and learner. The reason is that the task can be designed and can be chosen by the teacher taking into consideration the learners’ interest. If the task is not appropriate to learners’ level or to their needs, the lesson can be boring and just wasting time. In addition to this, the learner can lose his interest to the lesson and have no motivation.
Table 1.1

Activities like the following generally have the potential to become effective tasks. The tasks in the following are based on activities from:

• 
  Face to face Pre-intermediate⁴ by Chris Redstone & Gillie Cunningham (Cambridge University Press 2005)
  
• 
  Total English Starter⁵ by Jonathan Bygrave (Pearson Longman 2007)
  
  
  1. 
     Listing or brainstorming
     

You can list people, places, things, actions, reasons, everyday problems, things to do in various circumstances etc.
Examples:

• 
  In pairs, agree on a list of four or five people who were famous in the 20th century and give at least one reason for including each person; Can you remember your partner’s busiest day?
  
• 
  On your own, make a list of all the things he/she did. Then check with your partner. Are there any things you have forgotten?
  

2. Ordering and sorting
This can be sequencing, ranking, or classifying.
Examples:

• 
  In pairs, look at your list of famous people. Which people are most likely to remain popular and become 20th century icons? Rank them from most popular to least popular, and be prepared to justify your order to another pair.
  
• 
  Look at the four pictures. They are mixed up. Work in pairs. Put the four pictures in a sequence so that they tell a story. Be prepared for telling your own story to another pair.
  

3.Matching
You can match captions / texts / recorded extracts to pictures; short notes or headlines to longer texts, e.g. news items.
Examples:

• 
  Read the texts – each is about a famous person but the person is not named and look at the photos. Match each text to a photo. Then talk to your partner, and say how you were able to match them. Prepare to tell the class how you have done it.
  
• 
  Read the four headlines A to D. Match two pieces of information to each headline. Explain to your partner how you did this. What clues did you find? Have you both used the same clues?